I am thinking… about Charlottesville, my own privilege, and the need to speak out and say, as a white woman, that the neo-Nazi crap going on there is abhorrent.

I am thankful… for last night. My youngest cousin called to let us know that she and her mom had just bought her wedding dress and she was coming up to show it to my grandmother. When we were taking the pictures with her and grandma (who was miraculously alert and smiling), we discovered that the portrait of my late grandfather in his Navy uniform was photobombing them. We had a good laugh and got teary because we miss him and photobombing them is totally something he would have enjoyed doing. (My cousin and I were beloved by him so she’s ecstatic that he was there in spirit last night.)

I am hoping… what I just ate and drank will get my blood sugar to where it needs to be and I won’t feel so hypoglycemic.

I am learning… the fingers that are least painful to prick with my glucometer. I am also trying to get a baseline for what “normal” should feel like.

In my kitchen… just noshed on some Chinese pork.

In the school room… class ends for me this week (4 chapters to outline for the quiz, 2 reports, and 2 journals due on Wednesday) and then I get to spend some time outlining the Business English textbook so I can test out of the class.

Closing Notes: My priest made an interesting point this morning. She commented that it is an example of white privilege that she was able to step away from the Internet and all the coverage of Charlottesville to go help at a community event raising money for the local theater. For many people, the presence of the jerks in Charlottesville is not something that they can escape. I have friends whose relatives were in concentration camps, whose family members perished, and for whom the neo-Nazi presence was a reminder that there are people there who want to kill them and their children for being Jewish or of Jewish extraction.

For people of color, they are reminded every day of their lower status in America and quite a few people have commented that if the protesters with tiki torches had been African-American, the National Guard would have been called in to quell the protest. Others have offered equivocations that the Antifa and BLM are as bad as the neo-Nazis and that’s utter bullshit. First of all, most of the Antifa just want to go cause mayhem — seriously, even anarchists disavow association with them. Secondly, BLM is largely peaceful but white people are incredibly threatened by them marching that law enforcement tends to go overboard. The neo-Nazis in Charlottesville look like a bunch of frat boys in their khakis and polo shirts — they haven’t experienced a day of persecution in their lives!

White people need to speak up and condemn these acts. Yes, crap does happen where African-Americans yell epithets at white folks — I experienced it living in Columbus, Ohio. However, I didn’t take it as personally as I could have because I knew that there was a lot of hurt and anger behind it that spans generations and that they were dealing with things that I would never experience. I have never had a landlord refuse to rent to me because of the color of my skin, I never had to attend a school that was sub-par because of the neighborhood in which it was located, and while my dad’s family fled persecution in Ireland in the 19th century and weren’t allowed into the States (long story), my ancestors were never considered mere pieces of property.

White people enjoy a very privileged status in this country and we need to use that privilege to SPEAK UP when there is injustice being committed. If a friend lost a family member or had a tragedy happen, you would speak up. Guess what? There are a number of communities in this country whose lives and well-being are threatened by the men marching in Charlottesville and WE NEED TO SAY SOMETHING.

July 19th was my 17th blogiversary and it passed quietly because of school and things in my personal life. As a way of ignoring the crappy health news I got today, here are are some ways my life has changed since I started blogging on July 19, 2000.

I’ve come full-circle in terms of relationships. When I started this blog, I was dating Jon. Then we went through our long engagement, marriage, a short separation, and now divorce. It’s a painful realization in a lot of ways but it also provides me with a record of the good times that I can look back upon eventually.

I have lived in five states. I had spent my life in California and was living with my parents over the summer before my senior year of college. Since then, I have lived in: Ohio, Minnesota, Montana, California (again), and now Washington. I’m glad to have had these experiences in seeing how people across the country live.

I have stopped coding largely by hand. For the first year, I coded by hand and then went to Livejournal, two iterations of Greymatter, Movable Type, back to Greymatter, b2, and then WordPress 12ish years ago. It’s good to know how to do some of it still so I can fix sidebars but I’d have to learn PHP to be able to create my own themes.

I’m Episcopalian again. At the time I started blogging, I was attending my Episcopal church at home and then attending an evangelical church at school. Eventually, I attended an LCMS church, went ELCA for 10 years, AALC for three years, and then became Episcopalian again.

Looking out my window… dark. It’s supposed to start getting hotter until temps peak in the high 80’s/low 90’s on Wednesday or Thursday. Oh freaking joy…

I am thinking… about my Interpersonal Communications homework that is due on Wednesday night. I have the second of two chapters left to read and then the quiz, the reports, and journals to complete. If I can get the reading done tomorrow, I can take the quiz and try to get the rest of the writing done tomorrow night, leaving me 24 hours before the due date in case of emergencies.

I am thankful… for this piece by Simcha Fisher. Many people have no idea what true poverty looks like and they need to check their privilege. Then again, most people who get cranky about this piece don’t give a rat’s butt about the idea of privilege so I guess I’m just preaching to the choir?

One of my favorite things… chewing ice. It’s a bad habit but a comforting one, having been through two abdominal surgeries and having a GI tract that gets cranky.

I am wearing… jammies. My Online Debate Team shirt (so many people on the Internet are wrong-headed) and black sweats.

I am creating… this post and one for my 17th blogging anniversary which was July 17th.

I am listening to…delta waves music on YouTube to try to get to sleep.

I am hoping… General John Kelly can get the White House and Trump administration in general under control. It’s been daily scandals since January 20th and the voters who elected 45 in November should be ashamed of how they’ve effed up the country.

Needeh kittehs. Homer is being excessively needy today, which is something considering how needy he is normally. He has been on my lap a few times today and is currently causing me to type this one-handed so I can pet him.

Helping house panthers. If you’re a lover of the black kittehs like I am, go here to look at cat pictures, help with psychological research, and help the black ones (who are the least likely to be adopted) find homes.

Ouchie! I went to the beach on Monday in new water shoes that were not tight enough on my heels and between all the sand and water that got in there, I ended up with some pretty foul blisters. They’re bad enough that I’ll be in flip-flops for at least the next few weeks.

John McCain. Samantha Bee put it best when she said last year that an election is usually between two fundamentally decent people with a difference of opinion. (Obviously, 45 is an exception to this rule.) John McCain is a decent human being who has served his country both in the military and in Congress. My thoughts and prayers are with his family at this time. (He is also one of only two Republicans for whom I have voted — I voted for him in the primary in California in 2000 to try and knock Bush Jr. out of the race.)

Being able to be useful. I’m one of the few native Californians that doesn’t speak Spanish (I understand it but can’t speak it) and there was already a church youth group doing the program so I offered to just be an extra set of hands whenever I was able this week. This meant washing dishes for Christ. 🙂 They needed someone to do the breakfast dishes so I jumped to it. I may or may not have flooded the kitchen (twice) on Tuesday but I figured stuff out so that I was able to do all of it on my own on Wednesday. I’m bummed that I woke up with a migraine this morning and didn’t get to help. 🙁

Learning how to play Uno in Spanish. The church doing the program had math board games and card games for the kids and that included Uno. Most of the kids knew how to play it but one little girl didn’t… and didn’t understand a lot of English. I learned (and in a few cases reinforced) my colors in Spanish and learned the word for “zero” in order to explain what card she needed to play. (Like most kids who grew up watching Sesame Street, I did know how to count to ten.)

Teaching my kiddos to sing “When I Was One”. We had kids as young as 3 and it’s kind of hard to find math boardgames to do with them (they eventually just had them do extra playground time) so I did “When I Was One” with my younger kids to reinforce their numbers in English and because it’s fun. 🙂

Gave a lot of high fives to kids. When I was playing “Set” with some of the littler kids, I’d give them high-fives when they made a set because social praise is a fabulous reinforcer. Their smiles were so incredibly wonderful.